Chapter Text
Alex rapped his fist repeatedly against the bedroom door Monday morning, “Luke! C’mon, buddy!” he called in that signature tone of his, a cross between exasperation and genuine worry.
He shared a look with Reggie, who got in his rounds of knocking, but there was no response.
“Are you sure he’s in there?” Reggie posited.
Green Day began to blare at an obscene volume from behind the door.
“Yup, okay. Definitely in there,”
Oh yeah and definitely in a mood.
Alex could understand. Friday night had been quite eventful for their lead guitarist to say the least. But, he could not afford to be late, and Luke was the only one out of them with a car, “We gotta head to school, man!”
“I’m sure it’s not that bad!” Reggie, with no tact, directly referenced the unfortunate event, “ I bet everyone forgot!”
Without taking his eyes off the door, Alex handed his phone off to Reggie, the video already pulled up on TikTok. Similar ones popped up as Reggie scrolled, the soundtrack of jeers and laughs on repeat.
“Or not,” He grimaced and gave Alex back his phone, “Please, Luke. Can you not ghost us now?”
Luke had already gone off the grid for the entire weekend. Not even the scheduled call the night before band practice to remind them to come to said band practice.
The universe would have to cease to exist for Luke to not hold band practice. This must be bad .
Alex checked the time and swapped out his knocks for full-out bangs to the door, making the wood shudder (and making Reggie yelp loudly over ‘Jesus of Suburbia’).
“Hey numb nut! If you don’t open your door now, we’ll tell your mom you’re cutting class. So say bye-bye to Betsey!”
The room instantly went quiet.
Then came the sound of a door clicking open, followed by it being swung open to reveal a scowling, bed-head sporting Luke. He clutched his acoustic guitar tightly.
“You threaten Betsey. That’s on grounds for immediate death”
Alex rolled his eyes, shoving Luke and ‘Betsey’ on the way in, “Oh boo hoo, may I plead insanity, dear jury,” he pouted sarcastically, “Now, let’s get a move on.”
Luke set his instrument on its stand and migrated to his bed, “I’m not going.”
“If you don’t show up, then you’ll give off the impression that you care what people think,” Reggie gently reminded him, “Isn’t that kind of off-brand for rockstar Luke Patterson?”
Normally, Luke rarely thought about being well-liked amongst his peers. He rarely thought about anything other than music anyway. But the mention of mingling with the public had him vigorously shaking his head and retreating to the safety of his room.
Reggie took a whiff and had to cover his nose. He was pretty sure Luke hadn’t left this room since Friday.
“I can’t show my face to school ever again. And Kayla-” Luke groaned, rubbing his face, “She’s getting the brunt of it too. God, I bet she’s so embarrassed. She must hate me.”
Kayla Caro, Reggie thought wistfully. Now she was well-liked amongst everybody and sweet as candy to boot. A real catch.
She and Luke had been talking a lot recently, and it was clear that there was some serious vibes bouncing off the two. Which was huge for Luke, considering girls were never really on his radar. But they seemed to hit off.
Being boyfriend and girlfriend seemed inevitable. Everyone in their year practically shipped them.
(Well, not everybody . But Reggie would like to keep that thought to himself and decide to be happy for his friend. Because he was! Super duper happy!)
“You like Kayla, though. Right? Then why did you…?”
“Run like a bat out of hell?” Luke finished gruffly for Reggie.
Right. The Incident.
All because of a game of Spin the Bottle at a party in Malibu. It had been for shits and giggles, the guys getting roped into playing (Reggie might have been the only one enthusiastic enough to partake).
After a few rounds, eventually it got to Luke, and the bottle ended its rotation pointing at, lo and behold, Miss Kayla Caro.
Everybody at the party had thought, ‘Oh boy. This is it’.
Though when it came time for Luke to pucker up, he choked.
Reggie had recalled the mortified deer-in-headlights expression striking his friend’s face, everyone goading him into kissing the girl he had been lowkey crushing on.
And then he took off. Leaving a crestfallen and humiliated Kayla behind, the moment captured on camera for all to replay and laugh about how the Luke Patterson chickened out.
Didn’t help that on his way out the door he ran into another partygoer and spilled his cup all over himself.
That was also caught on camera.
It was like a scene out of a movie. A real sad one.
“Dude, it just seemed so unlike you,” Alex could empathize with the situation. He too would have cracked and panicked under all the peer pressure in a similar scenario. It would have been his first response too.
Yet that was the thing. It was how Alex would have reacted. Luke would have laughed and brushed it off, charging in with no fear. Or at least crack a joke about everyone being a little too invested in his love life.
No, it wasn’t just ducking out of an uncomfortable moment. The boy had been afraid. Not necessarily repulsed. There was some other component to this, and they had to get to the bottom of it.
“Look, I couldn’t kiss her. Alright?”
Alex pondered on the word usage and threw out another question, “Was it ‘cuz she was drunk? You were both tipsy at most?”
“No, you don’t get it!” Luke clenched and unclenched his fists, grasping at the right words to make them understand (which Alex and Reggie do not).
"What don't we get?"
“I’m not… allowed”
Reggie leaned in, “Come again?”
“Not that I’m not ‘allowed’, but I’m just… not supposed to. I-I can’t kiss her, okay!”
“Why not? What aren’t you telling us?”
The next few seconds were dedicated to an intense staredown- Luke’s eyes flitting between Alex and Reggie. Alex could tell he was at war with himself, an explanation already at the tip of his tongue but deciding whether or not to say it.
Then came a relenting sigh.
“Look, you gotta promise me that you won’t tell anyone else,” Luke threw out a ‘shaka’ hand gesture, “Super Secret Band Swear?”
The boys mimed it without thought. And the deal was sealed.
“Remember Julie?”
Alex blinked. Out of all the words he had expected to come out of Luke’s mouth, he never would have thought this was it.
“Julie Molina? From Mr. Green’s class? Yeah,” Reggie nodded, “Her dad got that pony to come to her birthday party, that was epic!”
Alex raised a hand, “Enough about the time you fed a horse enough carrots that he crapped all over that backyard- what’s this have to do with her?”
A girl that they knew back in 5th grade? What was this about?
Luke motioned for the boys to be near the bed, so he could regale them with the tale.
10 year-old Julie and Luke were watching a movie in her family’s garage. They sat on the beat up leather couch in front of an even more beat up TV boxed set.
Luke had known Julie for years, having grown up not that far away from her in a house a couple streets over.
He was practically over all the time, bugging her about music- bugging her mom about music. Both seemed to know a lot about it, which had thrilled Luke at a young age, inadvertently sparking his interest.
Alex and Reggie would tag along too and they would spend all day running around the Molina house and getting up to trouble- the garage was their spot though.
Luke loved hanging out with Julie. She was always up for anything, easily the bravest out of all of them, and the most talented. She was too awesome to be hanging out with the likes of him and the guys.
But for some reason, she stuck by them, and Luke knew he would always have fun whenever he was with her.
Alex and Reggie had both gone home for the day, but Luke stayed behind. While waiting for Luke’s mom to get off work and pick him up, he and Julie came across one of her parent’s old VHS tapes- some cheesy straight-to-video movie from the ‘80s.
What it lacked in cohesive storytelling and adequate special effects, Julie and Luke made up for it by laughing and making fun of the whole thing (which only enhanced the experience).
At one point, the couple on the screen engaged in a kiss. Luke couldn’t help but notice Julie shutting her eyes, opening one of them to peek, and then opening both once confirming the scene shifted.
He stuffed his face with popcorn, “Why are you closing your eyes? It’s just kissing?”
“My tía says I shouldn’t watch scenes like that.”
“Your aunt is so weird,”
Julie shrugged, “She thinks I might get ideas from what I watch on TV.”
“Dumb logic. Then that means we’d drop anvils on people or try to run up walls like on Tom and Jerry"
“Luke! You did try running up the wall!”
“Just saying. There are woqrse things you could be doing than- than-"
Luke grabbed two pieces of popcorn and loudly made kissing noises, shoving them together.
“Mwah mwah mwah!” He bellowed obnoxiously and moving them towards Julie’s face, to which she squealed and laughed, batting him away.
“Yeah you’re right. It’s not a big deal, it’s just two people pressing their faces together,” She popped the loving popcorn couple into her mouth.
The motion drew Luke’s attention to her lips, and he cleared his throat, feeling his cheeks warm at the sight. (Woah, since when did this happen?).
He scooted away to put some distance. Some comfortable distance.
They continued on with the movie, but no more than 10 minutes later, there was another kiss scene to some Hall and Oates song. This time Julie managed to squint, stopping herself from closing her eyes completely, resisting instinct.
“Uh, so, have you, um, have you done it?” Luke, for some reason, couldn’t help but ask.
“No. A boy from church tried to kiss me when we were, like, 4, but my mom told me I slapped him so hard that he cried during most of mass.”
The outer corners of Luke’s smile twitched. That was so Julie, he thought.
“What about you?” Julie threw the question back on him, “You keep talking about wanting to kiss Alex’s sister or whatever.” She said this with her gaze averted to her fingers, twiddling with the many bracelets on her wrist.
Luke was unable to pinpoint her tone. Just found it weird that she got kinda glum during a particularly hilarious part of the movie.
“It was a joke. I was messing with him,” He said, and it ended up being reassuring to his best friend. And she was looking at him again, “Besides, I don’t want my first kiss to be for a prank.”
“Hey, you said it wasn’t a big deal,”
“It’s not,”
Julie smiled knowingly. She could read into his words, his face, like no one else.
“I get it. I want mine to be special too. With someone I know who cares about me,”
That sounded nice, Luke thought. He was not one to be romantic, but he’d rather that be the case.
It seemed like guys his age were getting worked up over girls now, worrying about how they looked, how they smelled when around the one they liked. (Not in every case, Alex was definitely not looking at girls at the moment).
With the start of puberty, the pressure to commit to these certain rites of passages, like first kisses, were ever present at school.
Everyone thought he and Julie were like, together or something from how much they hung out. Because apparently boys and girls couldn’t just be friends anymore. You had to be dating to be this close.
It was a lot. It seemed to be a lot for Julie too. She would tell him things from the girls’ perspective too. And it was just as crazy on their end.
“Hey, what if…” Julie shook her head, backtracking, “No, it’s stupid.”
“What is it?”
She shifted away from him on the couch, “No, you’ll just laugh at me.”
“I’ll never laugh at you,” He chased after her, coaxing her to face him again,“Tell me?”
Julie tilted her head, shyly.
“What if… we kissed?”
Luke stared.
“Oh”
“Just to get it over with,” She was quick to explain, “And I’ll know it’ll be special because you’re…” She let out a small smile, “You’re special to me. You’re, like, one of my best friends.”
“You’re one of my best friends too,” Luke could see where she was coming from. It made sense. It would definitely take the pressure off. They knew each other. Better to get it over with and have it be with a person he trusted.
But wait.
“Wouldn’t it be-?”
“Weird?” Luke finished Julie’s thought.
“Maybe,”
“Yeah,”
“So,” Julie took it as a negative response, “We shouldn’t?”
“No!” Luke surprised himself with his own outburst. His ears burned red and Julie looked to be turning a bit flushed herself. This was an awkward topic. Like, really , awkward, “I mean, we don’t have to do it right now! If it feels too weird. But I want to have my first kiss be with you too, Julie. I do.”
She nodded and her smile grew, “Okay,”
“Okay,” Luke echoed, also smiling.
Julie stuck out her pinky, “Let’s promise each other that we’ll be each other’s first kiss, okay?”
Luke mirrored the hand gesture. But stuck out his thumb as well.
“Super Secret Band Swear?”
She rolled her eyes, “We’re not in a band, Luke.”
“Yet. Your mom’s been giving me guitar lessons,”
“Fine,” Julie made the ‘shaka’ symbol, “Super Secret Band Swear that I, Julie Molina, will be your first kiss. No one else. Not Alex’s sister, okay?”
Luke laughed, “Super Secret Band swear that I, Luke Patterson, will be your first kiss. So don’t go kissing church boys on me now, okay?”
Julie stuck her tongue out but agreed.
They shook their shaka’s in unison. And it was set.
They placed their hands on their laps, and Luke felt better. He was going to have his first kiss with someone cool, someone he liked. That was one less ‘rite of passage’ to worry about
He pointed to the screen, “Wanna keep watching the movie?”
“Sure”
They met in the middle of the couch, the bowl of popcorn settled in between them, and they returned to the way they were.
Although, Luke snuck a few more glances at Julie’s lips throughout the rest of the film.
He hoped she didn’t notice.
“Aaand, that’s why,” Luke concluded the story.
“Woah,” Alex pursed his lips, processing, “That’s- ”
“The sweetest thing!” Reggie interjected.
“-the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,”
Luke and Reggie frowned at the blonde.
Alex groaned, throwing his hands up in the air, “Oh who am I kidding, it was cute. But it’s ridiculous in the fact that you-” He pointed at Luke “-haven’t kissed anyone in 7 years, all because a girl in the 5th grade made you promised not to.”
“Shh, you weren’t paying attention. It’s not like that. They promised themselves to each other,”
Luke made a face, “Reg, that sounds- no. Just no. Please don’t word it like that. Ever,”
“So you and Julie? You two never kissed?” Alex asked.
“We were going to, but then she moved before anything happened,”
The boys all nodded. The Molinas had upped and left for a town a few hours away, which by L.A traffic standards, was really far away. They were all kinda bummed about it in one way or another.
“I haven’t really spoken to her since then, but I don’t think I can stomach breaking that promise anytime soon. Even if I do want to kiss Kayla. It was a Super Secret Band Swear and you know how I always keep an SSBS,”
Alex, ever the realist, proceeded to poke holes in Luke’s logic.
“Luke, it’s been years, you don’t seriously think that Julie kept her end of the promise? Do you?”
The thought had crossed Luke’s mind. Though he’d rather not ponder about it too much, “Dunno. She could have, but- yeah. I don’t know,” Luke craned his head to see their other friend not paying much attention to the conversation, “Watcha doin’ there, Reg?”
“Looking up Julie Molina on Instagram,”
“What- no!”
Luke leapt out of bed, chasing Reggie around the room, who was tapping away at his phone gleefully.
“You’re not curious?”
“I looked her up every now and then!” Alex was forced to intervene and blocked Luke’s path towards Reggie. The smaller of the two tried reaching over Alex to grab at Reggie. He had come to a halt, staring at his screen, “But her account’s now private last time I checked so you can’t-”
“Oh she just accepted my request. That was fast,” He pulled up the page. He whistled, “She looks great."
Alex turned to look and could confirm. Julie had definitely grown into herself over the years.
Luke went on his tip-toes before he wretched himself away, not wanting to be any part of it, “Guys, stop.”
Alex and Reggie were scrolling through Julie’s profile, both of them wanting to see how their old friend was doing after all these years.
“She seems pretty popular. And-oh”
Luke’s eyes widened, “What ‘oh’?”
Alex clicked his tongue and waved Luke over, to which he moved towards them at a snail’s pace.
For a second, Luke glanced over the pictures of Julie, all smiling in the sun, hanging out with friends, going out to cool places and he let himself get lost in admiring just how pretty she had gotten.
She had always been pretty. But 10 year-old Luke couldn’t see it then. That Luuke wouldn’t have known what to do with that information anyway.
It took a second for Luke to realize what the boys were ‘oh’-ing about.
Several pictures of Julie and this one guy would pop up a lot. Some blonde dude with freckles and light eyes. The ultimate boy next door type. And- was that a varsity jacket?
“Yeah, I don’t think she kept her promise, dude,”
Reggie swiped and a few more pictures of her and this guy appeared. Some close ups, them staring at each other, others making cute faces. It was… cute. They were cute together.
“That’s- that’s fine,” Luke said, stalking away. Was his disappointment showing? Somehow he felt even more like an idiot now than he had on Friday.
What had he been thinking? Yes, he held out a sliver of hope that Julie remembered and honored their SSBS, but things had changed.
“But I still kept my word. All this time. So that matters in some way, I guess. I’ll just have to live with that then,”
Before the boys could stop him, Luke left the room in a daze.
Alex slapped Reggie upside the head, “Why did you do that?”
“I just wanted to look! Why didn’t he look her up earlier?” Reggie rubbed the tender spot on the back of his head.
“Maybe it’s because he’s using this promise as an excuse. You know how Luke is. Mr. ‘Music-Is-My-Life’. It’s always been band first for him. His social skills are still…”
“Trash?”
Alex nodded.
“I hear ya. Poor kid’s been coasting on good looks for so long,”
“He’s never dated before, he’s just psyching himself out,” Alex hypothesized, “That’s what this whole Julie thing is about.”
“It’s obvious he likes Kayla. And that Kayla likes him,”
Alex ignored the twinge of sadness in Reggie’s tone and reeled it back to the matter at hand, “We need to nip this in the bud,”
“You mean ‘butt’”
“No, Reg. The saying is ‘nip it in the-’” He waved his hands, “Never mind! Luke’s making himself miserable with this!”
“So what should we do?”
The two of them thought about it. Then they shared a look. Then they looked at Reggie’s phone.
Reggie grinned conspiratorially, “Oh yeah. We’re so doing this!”
Luke trudged into the garage space on Friday, the hub for Sunset Curve ’s musical awesomeness.
It had been a hellish week. A week of trying to not let his peers’ taunts get to him. A week of Kayla purposely avoiding his gaze every time they ran into each other in the hallway. A week of being a walking joke basically…
I can’t believe I actually went to school, he thought bitterly to himself.
He should have stayed at home. To save himself from the torment. But then he wouldn’t be here, with Bestey strapped to his back, ready for some well needed release through music.
There was some shuffling inside, so Luke assumed that the guys were already in for practice.
He threw open the double doors, “Alright, boys, so who’s ready to kill this rehearsal-” He stopped short.
Because Alex and Reggie were nowhere to be found.
Only a girl perched on the couch, standing up upon his arrival.
“Um, hey?” Luke waved lamely, closing the doors. Who was she and what was she doing in their studio?
The girl combed away her curly locks over her shoulder as she crept closer, looking at him more intently. With a familiarity that Luke couldn’t place.
Then she broke out into a dazzling smile.
“Huh, those guitar lessons really went somewhere didn’t they?”
It was the sound of her voice that had Luke calibrating his senses. He did a double take.
Oh my god. It was her.
“Julie?”
She waved her hands.
“Surprise?”